New York deals with fallout from Irene

NEW YORK CITY was slowly getting back to business as usual after Hurricane Irene, but hundreds of thousands of people who normally travel in from the surrounding area faced a tortuous commute as flooding knocked out transit routes.

Downgraded to a tropical and then a post-tropical storm, Irene pelted eastern Canada with rain and 50m/h winds after killing 28 people in the US.

It cut power to 5 million homes and businesses and choked towns with floodwaters, especially in Vermont and New Jersey.